Chronostratigraphy, Site Formation, and Palaeoenvironmental Context of Late Pleistocene and Holocene Occupations at Grassridge Rock Shelter (Eastern Cape, South Africa)

A reanalysis of Grassridge Rock Shelter in South Africa's Eastern Cape reveals pulsed human occupation from 43–28 ka, 13.5–11.6 ka, and 7.3–6.8 ka, interspersed with complex geogenic, anthropogenic, and biogenic inputs. This pattern mirrors broader Pleistocene-Holocene trends in South Africa's high-elevation grasslands, suggesting forager mobility was intricately linked to rapidly fluctuating palaeoenvironments during the last glacial-to-interglacial transition. The study combines optically stimulated luminescence and radiocarbon dating with sedimentological and microbotanical analyses to reconstruct site formation processes and environmental shifts, from cooler, drier MIS 3 grasslands to warmer, moister summer rainfall-dominated conditions in MIS 1.

Ames, C. J. H., Gliganic, L., Cordova, C. E., Boyd, K., Jones, B. G., Maher, L., & Collins, B. R. (2020). Chronostratigraphy, Site Formation, and Palaeoenvironmental Context of Late Pleistocene and Holocene Occupations at Grassridge Rock Shelter (Eastern Cape, South Africa). Open Quaternary, 6, 5. https://doi.org/10.5334/oq.77